


We Started Out All Wrong

by PureSapphistry



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Background Angella, Background Castaspella, Background Princess Regent Glimmer, Brown Ration Packs: Mushrooms, Catra Learns Magic, Cunnilingus, Dry Humping, Emotional Hypervigilance Catra, Every single character is above your local age of consent because I say so, F/F, Filth and Feelings, Gray Ration Packs: Seafood, Green Ration Packs: Vegetables, I Hope I'm Getting Better At Tag Wrangling, Injury, Intense Detail-Fixated Adora, Magical Injury, Other Ration Pack Colour Suggestions Appreciated, Red Ration Packs: Meat, Rehabilitation, Self-Esteem Issues, Shadow Weaver | Light Spinner (She-Ra)'s A+ Parenting, Smut and Sentiment, Switch Adora, The Horde says: sex is fine but don't catch Feelings, The Ration Pack AU, The Smutty Chapters Are SMUTTY, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Fisting, White Ration Packs: Poultry, locker-room sex, switch catra
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:42:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26495071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PureSapphistry/pseuds/PureSapphistry
Summary: There are a few timelines, tucked away in the tiny Despondos multiverse, in which Adora goes back for Catra just as soon as she can. There are fewer still in which Angella survives, and Glimmer must serve as Princess Regent, and Castaspella teaches Catra how to use her innate magical ability. And there is only one that avoids being exposed to the universe at large, and Horde Prime, until it is absolutely ready.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 47
Kudos: 221





	1. PULSE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the Ration Pack AU, where all Ration Bars are Ration Packs instead. There may be other differences but they are inconsequential.
> 
> Adora beats Catra 2-1 in scenario battle drills.
> 
> Catra retaliates under the canteen table.
> 
> They go into protracted battle in the locker rooms.
> 
> Some minor property damage occurs.
> 
> CW: So much smut.

It had been a good day.

Her muscles were nearly depleted from the training ground. Her breath ran rough and slow and deep, washing out even the tiniest dregs of stale air from her system. She was so hungry that even Ration Pack Green-7 tasted good, and she had earned that hunger – after all, the best part of the evening? She had beaten Catra, two scenarios to one, and now she got to gloat about it.

Catra slammed her meal tray down on the metal table, landed heavily in the chair opposite Adora, and kicked her in the shin. “That’s for the shit-eating grin,” she growled.

The grin only grew. “What, can’t handle a fair defeat?”

Catra immediately kicked her other shin. “Ass.”

Adora covered her mouth with her hand, stifled a simultaneous hiss of pain and giggle of amusement.

And then Catra smirked, and she only smirked like that when she’d found a new angle of attack. “Makes a difference, having you on top.” She drawled it, leaning into her voice’s casual husk. “Shame you’ve no idea how to capitalise on it.”

Oh no.

Adora was no good at hiding anything and so she had to keep her hand in front of her mouth, desperately hoping it obscured the blush. Two seconds later she was enormously grateful to have her hand so close to her mouth – she could muffle the squeak that jumped up the back of her throat as Catra’s foot touched her thigh. It did not help at all that Catra refused shoes and had her feet part-bound during the day, because that just meant that the toes against her thigh could move that much more subtlely and with that much more precision.

Her other hand was still holding her fork; she tensed it with the effort of staying quiet.

“What, no comeback? Oh, Adora. We’ve got to work on that.” Catra’s toes slid up a little further.

“Not here, dumbass.” Adora mustered a growl.

“What was that? I can’t hear you when you're mumbling into your hand.”

Adora jabbed her clenched fist, fork and all, at Catra's foot. She knew it was a mistake as soon as she did it, Catra’s reflexes were far better than hers, but she had already committed. Catra’s foot whipped away and Adora jabbed herself in the thigh, hard, and grimaced in embarrassment.

Catra’s high-pitched giggle was far too loud, and Adora felt herself trying to shrink away from the entire mess hall at once.

She scrunched down almost into her own jacket collar, glared at Catra, and chomped her way through the rest of Ration Pack Green-7 in outraged silence.

Catra just smirked.

\--- 

Someone’s locker door made one hell of a clang as Catra’s back slammed into it. Neither of them cared whose. Last time it had been Rogelio’s. He’d complained about the dent every day until it had been fixed, but his complaints had served as delicious little reminders to both Adora and Catra. They’d been particularly rough with each other that week.

“Pissed you off, did I?” Catra barely managed to get out, past Adora’s furious lips.

“Shut up.” Adora’s hand slid halfway up Catra’s side under her angular tank-top, forcing a gasp that pulled breath right from Adora’s mouth. She savoured the rumble of Catra’s purr, feeling it through fingertips and lips alike.

Catra’s breath hitched and deepened as Adora’s fingertips moved. The details surged, and Adora was consumed by them.

There was still some of the slightly cloying Ration Pack Grey-3 on her breath, laced with Beverage Citrus-9. Adora didn’t particularly like any of the Grey ratpacks, but at least it wasn’t the salted stink of the clammy, rubbery Grey-5. Citrus-9 made up for it somewhat, but it was the sheer difference – warm humid breath instead of recycled cool air – that took Adora’s capacity for thought and scrambled it.

The outlandish roughness of Catra’s tongue. Adora had to take time to get used to that, every time they kissed. The first few times, she’d been left with mouth ulcers for weeks after Catra had gone a little too hard. Of all things, mouth ulcers had been the thing that had made Adora realise just how much the thought of marking, and being marked, thrilled some base part of her hindbrain.

The heat and slight sparseness of the fur just behind Catra’s right ear, and the flicker of her ear against Adora’s hand as she ran her fingertip along the base of it. These were things that nobody else knew about and nobody else had ever felt, and they were something like a piton at the back of her mind, jammed deep into all the other thoughts of Catra but distinct and hard and anchoring. These were sacred details, hers alone.

The three hook-and-eyes on the back of Catra’s collar, the slight kink in the third one that needed an extra little twist to free. The hidden zip beneath them, and how Catra never quite did it up all the way. The number of nights they had sat up together, Adora reading a book Catra had stolen for her and Catra sewing something out of fabrics she’d scavenged from Waste Two or outright stolen from the quartermaster’s office, all hovered above that third kinked hook.

The way Catra’s hands folded slowly onto her hips, symmetrical, index fingers first, thumbs landing at the same time as her little fingers. It was what Catra did when she had lost patience, and a couple of breathy seconds later, the split second Adora finished unzipping her back, she proved her frustration by hauling Adora into her hard by the hips, pushing one knee forward, interlocking their legs just the right way.

The way Catra rolled her shoulders, trying but not quite managing to retain her acid smirk as her top slipped down her arms between them, trying but not quite managing to keep the blush from her cheeks. Despite their height difference she most certainly was not used to looking up at Adora, at least not without a barb ready.

Every time, that look floored Adora, sent a wash of prickling heat running up her whole body. And every time it was sufficient distraction that she didn’t notice Catra’s fingers moving until they twisted and plucked and slid up under Adora's top, forcing a convulsion from her abdomen and a gasp of surprise from her throat.

(and an intense memory of a battle simulation about eighteen months ago, the first time Adora had been blindsided by a detail and her attraction to Catra – when Catra had darted out of Lonnie’s line of fire, stepped right up into the other girl’s personal space, and with five quick motions  _ disassembled her gun while she was still holding it _ – Adora had stared on-and-off at Catra’s fingers for weeks after that, at least until she got to feel them working for herself)

They staggered backward. Adora slumped onto the bench in the middle of the room, pulling Catra down with her. Catra repositioned, and the sight of her straddling Adora’s lap more than made up for the absence of her knee between Adora’s thighs. She used the slowdown to divest Adora of her turtleneck. Adora’s hands hit the bench behind her, propping her up against Catra’s weight and her affections.

Catra pressed her face into Adora’s, the very corners of her lips against Adora’s cheekbones. She kissed her over and over, like she was mapping out her face - chin, lips, nose, even her eyebrows. It was so completely different, another sacred detail Catra was giving to her freely. Catra’s lips came back to her own and she paused for some reason, leaned back a little into the straddle.

Adora sat there looked up at her and she knew, knew beyond any doubt at all that the look on her face was completely stupid and that she could not possibly change it at all. And Catra smiled at her, and tilted her head, and then the smile became a smirk. Adora closed her eyes in anticipation as she leaned in closer.

The wash of Catra’s breath in her ear set gooseflesh rushing down her arms.

The tip of Catra’s tongue sliding down her jugular vein set her neck arching.

The backs of Catra’s claws sliding down her stomach set her abdominal muscles tense and her breath to shuddering – and that’s when Catra retracted her claws and flattened her palm, purred loud in Adora’s ear as she settled down into her straddle.

“Hey, Adora?”

“Wh-“ And she wasn’t ready for the dive of Catra’s fingers, so nimble and quick, pressing just right to slide into her trousers and underwear and down. And she wasn’t ready for Catra’s kiss, and between those two inputs she let out something somewhere between a groan and a whine, right into Catra’s open mouth.

Catra’s hips rolled hard as she broke the kiss, leaned back a little, looked down at Adora. “I fucking love that I can do that to you.” A rare admission. So rare it even distracted Adora from the fingertip nestled just a little way inside her.

“And I… fucking… love-“

Catra’s wrist shifted and her finger plunged deep, and Adora let out another shuddering moan.

“You swore for me.” She grinned so wide and so possessive that her nose crinkled. Her wrist moved in slow rhythm now, and Adora bit her lip as a second finger pushed into her.

“I guess… I did…”

Catra giggled even as her fingers drove deeper. She changed position again, moved her knee back in between Adora’s legs, leaned in and murmurs into Adora’s ear. “I’m going to make you see stars.”

Adora nearly did, from Catra’s words and tone alone. But now Catra’s weight was on her leg and her hips were rolling in time with her wrist, and Adora could concentrate on keeping her leg muscles tense just the way Catra liked, the way she’d ridden her so many times before.

But Catra’s approach was different this time. Her hand was on Adora’s neck rather than her shoulder; her lips were plucking soft curses out of Adora through her ears and jaw, throat and collarbone rather than languishing on Adora’s lips; she already had two fingers inside Adora and Adora suspected that would soon become three.

That was because this was a dedicated assault, she realised. She’d only ever seen Catra this focused on the battlefield before now.

The knowledge that she was the target of Catra’s total focus sank into her hindbrain, cascaded down her body. She felt herself relaxing, felt a blush in her cheeks so hot part of her wondered if it would be permanent, felt herself soaking Catra’s fingers and her own underwear in readiness.

She leaned back just the tiniest amount, arched her neck into Catra’s ministrations, and surrendered to her.

Catra’s lips were a little tacky and her kisses gripped and pulled at Adora’s skin. She started at her chin and plucked her way slowly down Adora’s throat, lingering at the dimple where her clavicles met her sternum. It took a moment for Adora to realise that Catra was announcing her intentions, telling her she was going to keep kissing downward. That realisation burned under her skin, carrying Catra’s promise down to Adora’s breasts. She knew that right now her neck and shoulders and chest were patchy and red from the heat and she knew that Catra didn’t care, and all those things together pulled at her flushing skin and condensed that subdermal exultation into two white-hot points.

She felt the wash of Catra’s hot breath change shape, felt it broaden, knew that she was smiling. And then those lips moved, kissing slowly down, tongue lapping intermittently between Adora’s breasts, tasting her skin and sweat. Then kissing leftward, sensation changing as the tissue beneath her lips changed from sinew and muscle to softer stuff, then again, slowly taking Adora’s nipple into her mouth.

She let out another groan as that white-hot point sparked and flared, and sent currents through her. Catra pulled a little harder, bathed it in saliva and lapped gently, pinched soft with her lips, and finally pressed a third finger into Adora.

She nearly stopped breathing. Her hips bucked hard, she moaned and it guttered in her throat, she finally did something with her hand – brought it up behind Catra’s head, slid her fingers into her hair. Breath came again and she foundered, desperately looking for what would make Catra bring her over the edge.

“Catra,” she let her voice stay ragged, let it communicate the full extent of her dishevelment, knew that Catra would claim her outright for it.

“Fuck,” she let herself swear again, let it communicate the rules she would break for Catra that she would never break for anyone else.

”Please,” she let herself beg, let it communicate how much she needed Catra right now, how she could even commit the unforgiveable Horde sin of showing weakness in the long-term just for Catra’s touch.

“Take me.” She let herself use that phrase, and everything attached to it. Let herself tell Catra in complete and total terms that she was hers for the taking.

Catra’s fingers sank deep, that last knuckle of each finger stretching Adora past comfortable and into full. She kept her rhythm of lapping and pulling on Adora’s nipple, matched it to the pulse of her fingers travelling those last few deepest millimetres over and over again.

Adora’s hips bucked, hard. She got more friction and an angle just that little bit more perfect out of Catra’s fingertips and then she rode, setting aside even the embarrassment of her wantonness – not something she’d ever managed to do before, she’d never been so craven before and it sank into her, the understanding that she really was willing to let every ounce of lust out for Catra.

And then it came, and Catra must have felt it coming because she released Adora's nipple, surged up, caught the first of Adora’s involuntary sounds in her lips and forced her tongue into her mouth as her body burned, as she nearly screamed.

Loud, hard breath over and over. A mess of kisses back and forth, Catra’s lips and tongue trying to keep up as Adora shuddered and bucked and twisted, arching hard and fighting herself to keep her lips in contact with Catra's.

And Adora came down slowly, kisses calming as the tension faded into bone-deep satisfaction. She shifted a little more upright, brought her hands up to Catra’s cheeks, showered her with kisses, groaned once more as Catra’s fingers slid out of her.

Slid her hands down to Catra’s shoulders, pushed her downward gently, until her weight and heat were centred firm and needy on Adora's thigh.

Ah, but this was routine. And Catra had already proven that today was a day for breaking routine.

Her mind raced, looking for what would please Catra best.

A little more time passed than she would have liked; Catra interrupted her train of thought.

“Hey, Adora. Just... if it feels good, do it.”

But that wasn’t what she was looking for.

The instant it came to her she grabbed Catra’s backside and stood. Adora lifted her as though she was made of aerated steel, stepped forward deliberately, slammed her into the same locker from earlier and drove an odd noise out of her with the impact.

“You squeaked.” Adora grinned, resting her forehead against Catra’s. The intimacy clashed wonderfully with their half-nakedness. That particular gesture hadn’t shown up in their repertoire since Catra’s promotion to Lieutenant Junior Grade, a year or so ago. It had dispelled all of Shadow Weaver’s resentment at having to acknowledge Catra’s ability, and fortified them both against the mutterings of their barrackmates for the weeks that followed.

Catra chuckled, laid her arms over Adora's shoulders. “You’re hearing things, dumbass.” Pulled her in for a kiss so much softer than her wit.

Adora savoured it. Gathered her strength as they traded kisses and touches, some feather and some forceful.

She let Catra’s legs down. The tiniest flicker of disappointment showed on Catra’s face, the corners of her eyes losing their smile tension. And then Adora used Catra’s trick against her, slid her fingertips to her transversus abdomenii, twisted them round and down and hooked into her torn bottoms and underwear. Catra gasped, her pupils surged wide for a moment, her back arched – and that made the next part much easier. Adora dropped to her knees, pulling Catra’s trousers and underwear down with her. She got to her ankles and Catra retained enough awareness to step out of her clothes, now completely bare for Adora.

She rested her fingertips on Catra’s heels, dragged them slowly up the backs of her legs as she stood back up, provoking shivers and purring and even a quiet mewl. And when she reached upright, her hands were still just below Catra’s buttocks. She gave the cat one last kiss, then she lowered herself slightly on bended knees, hooked her hands under Catra’s backside just right, and started to lift her.

When Catra’s shoulders reached the top of the locker behind her, she let out a soft “Oh.”

Adora looked up at her and tried to smirk, but she could tell it just came out as one of her goofier faces.

But Catra giggled again, and her eyes darkened and she closed her legs a little way, thighs resting on Adora’s broad shoulders, and she pushed down, raising herself the last couple of inches.

Momentary overwhelm.

Catra’s scent, all thick arousal and bitter sweat and Cleaning Gel Citrus-2. Her hair, tufty and a little sparse with a couple of strays already brushing against Adora’s nose.

One thing at a time.

Adora turned her head a little, placed a kiss at the very top of Catra’s left thigh. Was rewarded with a hitch of breath and a murmured curse. She turned her head the other way, kissed again, licked once, slow and deliberate from bottom to top. Another hitch, another curse, a shudder this time.

She brought her tongue around.

Catra’s texture, hair layered over flesh softer than even her lips or her breasts. Her taste, like her scent but with a little more acridity. And her breath a few feet above, catching into a groan. “You don’t… have to do this…”

Adora caught the hesitation, very nearly gave in to it. But this rivalry and affection with Catra gave her strength, enough to set aside what from anyone else would have been a stinging rejection, and she let Catra know what she thought of *that* sentiment with a single slow lick from bottom to top, with a tensing of her fingers and a squeezing of Catra’s firm backside.

No more objections came from Catra. That may have had something to do with the fact that she was now muffling herself with her own forearm.

In their past sessions Catra had ridden her thigh and kissed her and finished and that had been that. Now Adora had to piece together a plan of attack on the fly. She ran her tongue up each of Catra’s lips, explored her, particularly enjoyed pushing the tip of her tongue inside. But Catra’s strongest purr came when she held her tongue firm and ground gently just above. She alternated, tongue to lips and back again, over and over until Catra’s hand came to rest in her hair – and then she stayed with her tongue, looked up into Catra’s eyes, drank in the sheer need on her face, heard her breath and purrs intensifying, focused on keeping that rhythm.

Catra’s shuddering, guttering groan was worth every ounce of the ache in Adora’s tongue, and jaw, and arms. Her hand in Adora’s hair holding her down hard, muffling her between her legs, was perfect. The bucking of her hips, the way Adora had to fight to keep her weight under control, the surge of wetness on her tongue and in her mouth.

She lapped absent-mindedly at the new moisture as Catra jolted and purred above her, until she realised she wasn’t having to fight her shifting weight any more.

“Hey, Adora…”

Adora looked up at her, pulled her tongue back into her mouth, and swallowed. Catra’s eyes had softened and so had her grip, thumb now running lines down Adora’s ear.

“You can let me down now…”

Adora laughed, and kneeled slowly – her arms ached enough that she might drop Catra if she tried to let her down in anything other than the proper heavy-lifting way.

Though Catra might kill her if she ever used that phrase to describe her.

Catra’s feet touched the floor. Adora stood back upright, and they just looked at each other for a moment.

“Not bad, for a dumbass.” Catra’s face didn’t match her words at all, and Adora would never tire of seeing her private smile as well as her public smirk.

“Hmm. Not bad yourself. For a... dumb... face?”

She'd never been any good at trash talk.

“You utter moron.” Catra leaned in and kissed her.

Soft, quiet, calm. It was restorative, somehow. Adora felt the ache of muscular exertion working its way out of her system, felt the exhaustion of all that on top of a hard day’s combat exercises roll away like morning fog.

But a change came over Catra’s breath, and Adora withdrew.

Catra’s eyes were scrunched shut and her lips were drawn, back and down hard enough that her canines were visible. Her breath was short and hissing, and her chest moved more than the sound would seem to say.

“Hey, Catra… are you okay?”

Mismatched eyes flickered open. A host of emotions swarmed Catra’s face and they went by so fast that the only ones Adora caught were affection and grief.

“...Hey, Adora. I’m…”

Her voice caught, and this time not in a good way.

“…I don’t know.”

Adora took Catra’s hand, led her back to the central bench and sat her down, grabbed their clothes from their many floor and peg locations, and sat beside her.

Catra stared off at nothing even as she dressed herself. Adora let her stay silent, but did at least help her fasten her top back together. Catra was plenty flexible enough to do it herself, of course, but it seemed like she needed more processing time and fewer other things to think about.

“Come on,” Adora broke the silence. “Warehouse Five. Don’t have to say anything, but frankly, for tonight? Fuck having anyone else around.”

Catra hesitated, then a nod and a smile, and glistening eyes.

They were both a bit sluggish, but they avoided all the patrols and cameras as always. In the rafters of Warehouse Five was where they kept their nest, and on the roof was where they went to talk and be quiet sometimes and just let the night pass around them.

Catra lay and stared at the stars. Adora lay next to her, watching her face.

It was at least ten minutes before Catra spoke again.

“It was so different this time.”

“Yeah.” Adora managed the whisper, still remembered the satisfaction even beneath all the layers of apprehension that she had built out of Catra’s tears and silence.

“And I loved your reactions. And you made me feel good, so good.”

Adora blushed, which was quite a feat in the chilly night-time air. “I’m glad.”

“And then… then it all felt wrong.”

Adora reached out, took Catra’s hand. She fought the urge to swallow something bitter and hot and acid. “...you didn’t want that?”

Catra closed her eyes, breathed deep, squeezed Adora’s hand. “No, that’s not it. I wanted it all, and more. But it’s like… like asking about the outside world. Like when I asked who made that deep red tapestry in Waste Three and Weaver dumped me in ‘re-education’ for three days. I wanted to know, so much. But after that it always felt wrong to want. Like something terrible would happen if I wanted too hard.”

Adora felt her eyes prickle hot. “You’re okay. Anything and everything you want, I’ll never do anything terrible to you no matter how much you want it. It’s okay.”

And Catra’s breath came hissing again. “Then why am I still crying?”

Adora hauled herself upright and guided Catra gently down to their scavenged nest in the roofspace. She pulled her down into the pile of bedding and held her to her chest, and pulled what counted for covers over the both of them.

“Will you tell me?” She asked. “Everything in your head right now. I want to know. I promise, no matter what it is, I’m not going anywhere.”

  
\---  
  


_ Years later, in the middle of a highly embarrassing talk with Perfuma and Entrapta about consent, Adora would realise that this had been the first time she and Catra had talked about any of their expectations at all, that before this point eighteen months in to their, for want of a better term, relationship, they had never made any attempts at consent or respect or even understanding. _

_ And she would excuse herself from the room, run in a panic to Catra and shower her with apologies and affection and apologies and kisses and apologies, and Catra would fight for about a quarter-hour to decrypt the source of Adora’s panic, and then Adora would fight for another five minutes to keep Catra from bringing righteous fury down upon Perfuma’s “scrawny, judgemental ass”, because Perfuma didn’t actually know anything about any of this, they’d just gotten into a conversation about some of those things that Perfuma was always a bit more willing to talk about than anyone else and Adora hadn’t seen a way out of the conversation and Entrapta had kept asking her for more information. _

_ And then finally Catra would shrug. _

_ “We didn’t know any better.” She would say. “We made the best out of what we had. As long as we keep doing that, who cares?” _

_ And Adora would nod, but still look concerned, and open her mouth to ask a question, and Catra would hold a finger up to her lips. _

_ “Fine. For the sake of your conscience I’ll say it out loud. Listen carefully because I will never say this again, I will never admit to saying it, I will pretend this conversation never happened.” _

_ And Adora would nod, with far too much enthusiasm, and Catra would snort out a laugh and clear her throat and lean in to murmur in Adora’s ear. _

_ “I wanted everything we did back then - except those two things I cut you for in, like, month three of Project: Marking Our Territory. You know the ones I mean, you never tried them again, it’s all fine. And as for now… come on, Adora. You know me. You’ve never jumped me at a stupid time. Consider my consent enthusiastically given.” _

_ “Mine too,” Adora would grin. _

_ “You’re such a dumbass. Now go, shoo. You made me talk about feelings again. You know the price. Bring me snacks, then rub my feet.” _

_ “Yes, ma'am.” _

_ “Oh, you are definitely calling me that from now on.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have started full smut, but somehow I do also have plot waiting to happen.
> 
> Keep reading if you like: Shadow Weaver getting her arse kicked to approximately the moon.


	2. PALADIN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shadow Weaver comes to negotiate for the return of two Horde defectors. Angella responds. The aftermath is extremely messy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've rewritten the last segment of this chapter following a user comment that pointed something out that I had completely forgotten or not caught in the first place, and that took the original ending from Pretty Skeevy all the way up to Oh God No.
> 
> CWs: references to torture, and a scene that contains hospital spongebathing.

“If Micah were here…”

“If Micah were here,” Angella drove her voice straight through Shadow Weaver’s, every ounce of her authority severing the masked woman’s manipulation before it could condense. “He would tell me not to play my hand too early. But he is not, and right now I do not care for hypotheticals and I most certainly do not care to hear my husband’s name on your lips.”

A moment of nothing, and then Shadow Weaver’s shoulders relaxed a little. “Of course. My apologies.”

A show of subservience, and nothing more. An easy victory handed over to make a future conflict seem more unreasonable on Angella’s part.

Bright Moon’s various parlays with the Horde - with Shadow Weaver in particular - never failed to remind Angella of just how tightly interwoven statecraft was with manipulation and abuse.

“I am so very sick of your lights and wires,” Angella says without thought and without filter. “For as long as Bright Moon stood to gain a few moments of quiet, a few weeks without firefights on the borders, I was willing to tolerate it. But here you are, insisting that we return your defectors - people who chose to walk away from the Horde, people who have the right to self-determination - regardless of their wishes. Insisting that they mean nothing to you on the one hand, insisting that their defection cannot go unpunished on the other. Smoke and mirrors, lights and wires, not a single word entirely true. So here is my riposte.

“We will not return your defectors. They left the Horde of their own volition and that is because your cause is not worthy and your methods of garnering loyalty are ineffective at best. If you do not wish to lose more people, be better to them.

“We do not find your threats of embargo, or trade route harassment, to be of concern. We have held our own against the Horde for decades and will continue to do so.

“Your threats of withholding parlay in the future only belie the importance of these defectors to your cause.

“And all of this said, I have seen first-hand the effects of the viciousness you visited on these defectors in the guise of discipline. I would not put either of them in any position where you might be able to hurt them ever again, no matter my standing and no matter the situation.

“Now get out.”

Angella sat back in her throne, watching Shadow Weaver impassively. The tall and stalking woman’s body language flickered, through rage and stubbornness and confidence and calculation, back to rage.

“I did not think you would fall for their little act.”

Angella raised an eyebrow even as her face betrayed her exhaustion.

“They have done this before. Gone begging to our commander, crying nonexistent hurt to try to garner his sympathy. But of course I suppose that would work on you, wouldn’t it? So ready to believe any little lie that paints a victim that you can feel pity for-”

Angella’s fury lent her strength, and with that same unfiltered lack of thought as before she surged to upright and sent three blurred shapes of white-pink magic shearing across the room.

“And what convenient lie do you have,” Angella bellowed as she slung cord after cord of burning, cutting magic directly at the masked woman, hardly even bothering to dodge her black and red return volleys, “to explain the spellburn you left in her veins? To explain the cracked ribs, the broken knuckles, the molars shattered in her gums?”

She was transported in righteous fury. Her magic flared and condensed, instinctively switching from defensive barrier to cutting edge to concussive force as needed.

The Bright Moon guard, and Shadow Weaver’s retinue also, were hiding now behind stout stone pillars as their superiors blitzed the air with white-pink, black-red staccato death.

Angella unleashed a wave of cutting force and three impact slugs in quick succession and Shadow Weaver dodged under the wave only to take an impact slug direct to the mask.

It fell to the ground in pieces and the scarred, bleeding face beneath snarled and roared. “She is mine!” it bellowed, distorted by spellburn as black and red flared out to start drawing full sigils in the air.

But Angella knew exactly how Shadow Weaver thought and fought, and she knew that if her opponent was putting the time, effort and exposure risk in to drawing full sigils instead of fighting on pure primal force, then she was absolutely certain whatever she was planning would work, and perhaps even that it would kill Angella outright.

One massive concussive force, then. Angella’s fury mounted and she planted the charge at Shadow Weaver's feet with a single whiplash of white light, just as black and red tendrils finished drawing sigils in the air.

And then noise. So much noise, and one massive flare of white-pink light with just a tiny current of red-black, clear but dissipating quickly.

The chaos faded away, and the throne room was in ruins. The entire western wall had been blown out, ragged brick and mortar exposed to the elements. Every banner and tapestry was a shredded mess. The smooth wooden floor was nothing but splinters and cracked planks, shards of wood and busted supporting beams.

A distant thump, and a scream.

Angella got to the hole in the western wall and surveyed the damage. Bricks had scattered into the courtyard of the castle and it looked like one or two pieces of debris had been flung further afield. As her guards took Shadow Weaver’s retinue prisoner behind her, she watched as a familiar figure, listing heavily to the side, visibly swaying as she did so, finished drawing a great black sigil around herself and then disappeared in a column of flame.

“Your majesty!”

Lieutenant Ravia’s voice, cutting through the hiss and ring left over from the magical detonation - and cutting through something else as well. A great blur of fizzing grey contracted slowly around her vision as she looked over to the strongest of her guards, finally felt lancing pain blossoming in her gut, and looked down to see a shard of black and red jutting out from her right side, just beneath her ribcage.

The last of the shard dissolved into nothing, with Shadow Weaver no longer there to sustain it. A gout of blood spattered on the floor and Angella felt the rush of falling, arrested only by Ravia’s sturdy arms, background sound dissolving to a mess of words that bellowed Her Majesty and Healer and clear a path!

Amidst a haze of grey and exhaustion, time fell out of joint.

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Lanternlight cast the room in messy orange. 

Lieutenant Ravia sat by her bedside, all but asleep in her chair. 

Angella summoned strength enough to move her hand, place it on her guard’s white glove. She did not even have the strength to squeeze her hand in thanks before exhaustion pulled her back under.

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Early morning sun painted the walls in a bright and washed-out blue.

Glimmer whispered quiet, desperate questions about diplomacy and logistics, allowing herself to flounder only in this safe place with her mother. 

Angella mustered breath enough to whisper.

“My proud, wonderful daughter. Remember that you are still learning. Have the strength and the awareness to surround yourself with experts. Consult them when you do not know, and learn from their advice. I believe in you.” 

Her daughter nodded, tears still on her cheeks but a little more determination in the set of her jaw.

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The room was suffused in deep, brilliant orange, no doubt the product of a glorious fiery sunset happening right now, somewhere outside.

The Horde girl Catra attended to her. 

Ran a hot sponge down her side, from ribcage to knee.

The blankets had been pulled aside to let her work, but not so far as to be immodest.

Ravia leaned against the wall, watching the Horde girl. 

“She volunteered, your majesty. Said she owed you. I’ll keep an eye on her for now.” 

Catra’s eyes jumped up to Angella’s.

“This... is the least I can do. Please rest now. An envoy from Mystacor is on its way.”

Exhaustion did not come for her straight away. She watched Catra work, watched the shadows the sunset cast on her face.

“Are you strong, Catra?”

“You know I am, your majesty,” the girl said, a huff of amusement colouring her voice. Then her hands paused, and she bit her lip. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“You’re absolutely right.” Angella smiled. “I have a task for that strength. Would you and Ravia please lift me? I should like to see the sunset for a little while. I miss the world outside this room."

The Lieutenant nodded, started removing her gauntlets and vambraces.

But then Angella felt Catra’s arms slide firmly under her knees and back, and the girl hefted her up before she could say a word. Catra strode to the balcony curtain and as she did, Angella managed to bring her hands up to hook around her neck. Catra used the hand under Angella’s knee to flip the latch on the balcony door, and took her out.

The sunset was every bit as beautiful as she had thought. For as long as she could, she watched as clouds scudded through vast red and blue canvas, small and fast and chaotic in their play. It wasn't long before the cold of the evening air started to seep into her, leaching heat from the side of her not held close against the Horde girl. And it wasn't long before she could feel the blue showing in her lips and the blood withdrawing from her face as her body scrambled to deal with the cold.

Catra glanced down at her, pursed her lips, and took her straight back into the recovery room.

"Sorry," she said to Ravia. "She didn't tell me she was getting cold."

"Nor would she have done." The Lieutenant huffed. "Your Majesty, I know that you have the authority to tell us all to get stuffed, but you have to take care of yourself, and let us take care of you in turn. Do you understand?"

Angella had the strength for an expression of mock outrage, and to put her hand to her lips and utter 'Treason!' in a dramatic stage whisper.

The Horde girl cackled, but finished tucking Angella back into her bed, then added another three thick blankets from somewhere. And then she tucked the edges of all the blankets under the mattress itself, like Angella's nanny had done so many years ago when her last resort was to seal the young Angella into bed like a small, resentful calzone.

"If you try to break out of this, your majesty, I shall ask Ravia to requisition some shackles." Catra patted her hand through the thick and tight covers with a menacing smile.

"And I'll follow through." Ravia wore a smirk. "Might keep them for when you're recovered and refuse to stop working through the night."

"That's the spirit," Angella managed, fatigue catching up to her.

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Castaspella was holding diagnostic sigils over her body, speaking non-stop. Words about siphons, magic, runestones, anticoagulants, a damaged kidney…

The Horde girl Catra stood behind her, taking notes. 

Angella’s thoughts came a little clearer. 

“Has it been twelve days already?”

“Fifteen,” Catra said, continuing to take notes as Castaspella spoke.

She let them finish working, drowsiness setting back in as Casta slowed down with her final few checks.

She forced her eyes wide open again when Casta dispelled the last of her diagnostic sigils.

Fifteen days?" She asked.

Casta nodded, lips narrow. "Horde trouble on the road. The Princess Regent sent a force to break the blockade. She’s doing an incredible job, Angella. Rest easy, and let us heal you.”

"Thank you. So much. I know you don't want to be he-"

"I don’t. But I wouldn’t have you die because of what happened to Micah.”

Angella couldn’t keep the grateful smile from her face, even as her eyelids dragged themselves down. In the last moments before sleep took her again, she saw Catra staring at the back of Casta’s head with an odd twist to her lips.

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Warmth, so much warmth.

Castaspella standing to her right, maintaining an array of orange sigils over her abdomen.

The Horde girl Catra standing to her left, her hand in the air, a passable attempt at one of the same sigils in front of her raised hand.

“Your Majesty,” the girl said, her orange sigil disintegrating. “The Arch-Sorceress has determined the nature of your wound and devised a treatment plan.”

“She hit you with a complex magical siphon, Angella.” Castaspella spoke carefully, maintaining her concentration on the floating orange sigils. ”It’s been trying to tear out your link to the Moonstone all this time. We can only treat you with sorcery - that is, any magic that isn’t linked to a specific stone. These are magical stabilisation glyphs that should first arrest the siphon’s progress, then reverse it until we can isolate it and dig it out of you.”

Angella nodded, turned her head back to Catra. “You have some magical capacity?”

The Horde girl nodded, tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth as she worked on a slightly smoother copy of Castaspella’s sigils. “Aye, Your Majesty. The Arch-Sorceress said that part of my heritage is a predisposition - and a sensitivity - to magic. The Princess Regent suggested that it might help me to combat my fears, to take lessons in how to use magic myself. It… seems to be working.”

“I am glad.” Angella couldn’t stop the smile.

“And… Your Majesty… thank you. I didn’t say before now, but Lieutenant Ravia told me what happened in the chamber. I owe you so much for that.”

“As long as you are healing,” Angella said. “And as long as you are no longer afraid.”

“I think… I'm on the path.”

The Horde girl’s face faded to grey as Angella fell asleep again.

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Heavy rain. The scent and weight of it filled the air around them, the sound of it thrumming on the windows merged with the low hissing of it dousing the balcony, leaking in through the slightly open door.

The Horde girl Catra stood at her bedside, holding two orange sigils carefully over her abdomen.

"You like the sound of rain as well?"

Catra looked across at her, one of the glyphs beneath her hands flickering for a moment. "Couldn't stand it," she said. "But when a certain someone is asleep, if they can hear rain or evening birdsong, they smile. So I… got used to it, these past few weeks." Catra let the glyphs dispel, and shook out her hands. "How are you holding up?" She asked, popping her knuckles one by one.

“I feel… better. On the path to better, at least.”

Catra locked her fingers together, stretched her arms up and over her head, threw the queen a wry smile as she pushed up and back toward the ceiling. "Good callback."

But there was something in her eyes that didn't ring true for Angella, and she felt compelled to speak. "All's not well, I take it."

Catra glared. A shred of pure fury, the same rage that Angella had seen when she had magically restrained the girl back in her throne room, when Adora had first brought her to Bright Moon... but then she breathed, visibly pushed it all down and huffed it out in a massive, slow breath.

"Ah... of course." Angella swallowed. "I should not have presumed to know what you were thinking. I am sorry."

"It's alright." Catra's voice caught on the words, belying her turbidity. "I understand why."

"Will you tell me? What it is that I think I see you hiding? Or tell me not to ask again. I could deal with that, I think."

Catra sighed, stared at the curtain for a moment, ears flickering with every splash and splatter of night-time storm. "Casta said not to worry you. But something tell me you would worry more, knowing there was something we were not telling you."

Angella merely nodded, only confirming, not pushing.

"You are... badly injured, in the magical sense. Your connection to the Moonstone was nearly severed and has been... corroded, the Arch-Sorceress said? She's in talks with the Princess Regent... probably right now, maybe already done, maybe tomorrow morning. She wants to take you to Mystacor, for magical rehabilitation. That's a slow training program where you rebuild your magical power, the same as you might regain the use of a limb over time after a bad injury." Her face was not impassive, but Angella could not read it. Perhaps this was what Catra looked like when she was carrying out what she regarded as a duty, perhaps this was the first time she had had to deliver bad news.

"Princess Regent..." Angella couldn't keep the smile from her face. "How is Glimmer doing?"

"She hit the ground running." Catra grinned. "Who knew Sparkles had it in her? She doesn't have mine or Adora's head for strategy - no offense meant, we _were_ the best in the Horde, it's hard to beat us in a fair fight - but I have no doubt at all that she understands everything about how this place runs, and she knows how to get the best out of everyone around her. Ask me how she broke the blockade on the Mage's March someday, she made all the right calls and we won the day for it."

"High praise indeed from the woman who calls her 'Sparkles' every chance she gets."

"Hey now, I am never going to stop doing that. You may be her mother, you may be the Queen, but even you can't make me give up that nickname. It annoys her too perfectly."

Angella tried to laugh, but something like cold toothache jolted her abdomen and she let out a yelp and a hiss.

"Ah, it must have been ten minutes already." Catra, slow and with care, drew the same two orange glyphs in the air again, and held them over the site of Angella's wound. "Go back to sleep, if you can. I won't be much of a conversation partner while I'm concentrating on these."

The warmth was already lulling Angella to sleep. "You can't... tell me... what to do..."

A peal of laughter, distant but warm, as darkness swallowed her.

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	3. CONVOY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Bright Moon Royal Guard convoy takes the trail to Mystacor to bring the Queen to the land of sorcerors and healers. Adora and Catra talk.

When people asked her what it was like, to hear with her ears and see with her eyes, Catra never did have an answer. All she knew was that humans heard less, saw less, and it was entirely impossible to imagine what the night around her might look and sound like to someone with those lesser senses.

Three moons hung high in the sky, slim crescents all, but casting more than enough light to see. The atmospheric hazes distinct to Bright Moon and Mystacor mixed together here on the Mage’s March, the long pilgrimage highway that connected the two. Lazy purple and cutting cyan swirled around each other, oil and water, never entirely mixed even when agitated by the passing of an entire Bright Moon Royal Guard convoy.

The sound of horses - tramping hooves, dangling leather and maille, huffing breath, a muttered whoa from the guard to the left who had made it through equitation a little earlier than he should. The sound of wagons - wheels churning dirt and crunching stones, axles creaking under moving loads, canvas and strapping whispering on wood as cargo moved. The sound of the guards, murmuring to each other, guiding their horses with words and tautening reins.

And all of this behind, with very different things ahead.

Catra’s ears flickered occasionally, zeroing in on different noises as they presented themselves for evaluation. Bug-cubs in their nest, begging food from their mother. Nightwaders plodding through the trees, clawed feet splatching in mud and unwieldy wings brushing foliage aside. Pitch-toads, chuntering to each other around their tiny self-made bogs. The slow, leisurely rush of moving air in leaves. Insects of all shapes and sizes clicking and crackling en masse, going silent whenever a larger creature padded past them.

And then someone started humming.

Catra pulled her reins gently, bringing her chestnut mare - who she had, after hearing all the over-the-top and stuck-up names of all the other horses, affectionately named Slug - to a slow lope and allowing the head of the convoy to move past her, until she reached the offending noise.

“Hey, Windbag. Can it.”

“Windbag!” The damned talking horse muttered in outrage. “Swift Wind! The great and noble Swift Wind! But can she remember it? She cannot. I am the steed of She-Ra!”

Adora, perched on the ridiculous horse’s back, slowly dragged her palm down her face. “Swifty, it’s night time, please for the love of everything just shut your face?!?”

The horse grumbled himself to quiet.

“You can insult me as much as you like come daybreak,” Catra said. And then with a smirk: “Hey, Adora. Can I... offer you a better ride?”

Adora stared at Catra’s lips for about ten seconds, turning a brighter and brighter red until a pebble skittered away from Swift Wind’s hooves and she was rattled back into her own head. “Uhh.”

Catra stifled a giggle - she knew full well Swift Wind would be a complete mule if he had to shut up and she didn’t. “Your face!” She whispered in glee. “You’re such an idiot.”

One of the benefits of having a steed as intelligent as Swift Wind was that Adora could rein one-handed with impunity. Not that she would ever admit to taking time to practice, but Catra had spent a few careful days working out how to transfer reins from two hands to one without fumbling and without sending Slug the wrong signals, precisely so that when Adora held out her left hand just so, Catra could hold out her right and they could lock fingers, just like this in the quiet of night, on horseback, whenever they wanted.

“Hey, Catra...” Adora was flushed again but the red came in different patches, signs of a different emotion.

“Yeah?” She made sure to squeeze Adora’s hand.

“So I know you’re going to be gone for a long while. And I’m going to visit whenever I can, because I’m going to miss you. And I know that you’re going to be with the Queen whenever you’re not learning. But… I wondered, if, when you came back to Bright Moon - I mean, if you even want to, of course, I’m okay with whatever you decide in the end but I just -”

“Adora, breathe. Also, snacks.”

The blonde couldn’t help but giggle, wiped away what looked suspiciously like a tear from her cheek, extracted something from her belt and handed it over. “Plumerian dates," she said. "Twelve of them, so you better get ready for twelve snacks worth of talking about feelings."

"I'll give you fifteen. Bulk discount." Catra snickered, taking the package, which felt like a sheet of leather wrapped around a cube of something squishy and very, very sweet smelling.

Adora took four long, deep breaths - deeper even than the slow sleep breathing that warmed Catra's neck some nights.

"Would you be willing to try a relationship with me? Etherian style?"

Catra tucked the dates into her belt pouch, took Adora's hand again. Looked over at her and took in every detail. "You like the sound of that, then? Having me all to yourself?" Catra found herself blushing. "Having you all to myself?"

"...I really do, yeah."

Catra swallowed. Squeezed Adora's hand again, felt the next words husk hard on the way out of her mouth. "I… can see the appeal."

"And like I… failed to say earlier. I don't mean straight away. You've got your training, and the Queen's recovery to think of."

"It's a strange debt," Catra said, unable to keep the seriousness from her face. "But... I don't mind owing it, you know?"

Adora nodded. "Remember when I went out to protect Salineas? The Princess there - Mermista - nearly got herself killed during the attack on the Gate. There was this new magic-user, Horde side - I think she was one of the Force Captains from a different division? In any case she managed a surprise attack and Mermista took the brunt of it, kept it from hitting me. But in turn that let me keep working on charging the gate, so I guess I don't really owe her for that so much as Salineas owes her... which is probably exactly the way it should be so I'm going to stop talking now. So, the Queen. Magical rehabilitation, right?"

"Yeah. She's got maybe three months to full physical recovery. Magical… Casta guessed about two years but this kind of injury is almost unprecedented so she really has no idea."

Adora nodded. "And your studies? How are they going? Are they still... helping?"

"Some days I still feel... sick, almost, when I feel that first bit of magic in my hands. On those days it reminds me of _her_ , I mean, how could it not? But it happens less often, so there's that. Studies themselves are fine I guess? Apparently I have a knack for combining the right sigils to get the job done. It’s intuitive, so it suits me. My main focus at the moment is just raw training, bulking up my magic muscles, getting better at casting more and stronger spells in a day, that sort of thing."

“Mmm. Glimmer’s been doing the same, blinking further and more often every day, as best she can.”

"Even after a full day's court and council? You ever tell her I said this out loud and I'll rip reality itself a new arsehole and fling you into it - but I’m impressed. It was so easy to get a rise out of her when we first got to Bright Moon. Princess Regent sits well on her now.”

“And if she wasn’t Princess Regent, you’d still be calling her Sparkles to her face?”

“You’re damn right I would. Her full title is Princess Sparkles of the Glitterland Sparklybutts, don’tchaknow.”

Adora snorted. "You nearly caused yourself a lot of trouble doing that when we first got to Bright Moon, I seem to remember."

"The woman looks like she eats pixies for breakfast. Just... lines 'em up and bites the heads off. Glitter blood everywhere."

Adora barely suppressed a cackle. "And you - being you - just couldn't let that go, huh?"

"Oh Adora," she purred. "You know exactly how much I love an easy mark."

The blonde turned red again, stayed quiet for a moment. "I'm going to miss you," she said quietly. "I can't believe that vulnerability is death. Not any more. I’ve fought through front lines and robot armies and sure, it was for Etheria. But really? It… was just to see your face again. I lost count when I was on the Plumerian front. Finally lost count of the number of times it was thoughts of you that gave me the strength to cut through."

The air hung heavy. Catra swallowed. This was a new level of truth, beyond the sheer physical honesty of the nights and stolen moments they’d spent together all this time, beyond the pragmatic honesty of living around each other, knowing how the other would act and always knowing, trusting in how the other would play out.

“You keep talking like that,” her voice came out hoarse, “and I’ll haul you into the supply wagon and make you forget your name.”

“Is that a promise?” Lips a little parted, eyes a little lidded, voice turbid - Adora’s countenance lit weapons-fire in Catra’s head.

“It is a threat,” Catra smirked, her own cheeks burning - even though she never, never blushed - in sympathy with Adora’s.

And then there was a moment. Adora’s expression shifted in tiny, new ways and Catra had the wildest hunch that these were the sorts of things people were asking about, when they wanted to know what her eyes could really see. Because she saw Adora’s shoulders stretch down and back, saw the cords in her neck shift and overlay, saw the echo of her heartbeat not only in her jugular but just below her collarbone as well - she could barely imagine the thundering of blood in Adora’s ears right now.

And then she held out another wrapped package, and Catra took it without thinking. It felt something like a book or a stack of papers, again wrapped in leather and tied tight.

“These are for you,” she said, voice low and quiet in a register and a place only Catra could hear. “They were always for you. Take them. Read them, when you have time. And then… come to me.”

Adora leaned to one side and Swift Wind beneath her ducked between two wagons, and slowed down to take the next watch at the tail of the procession.

Catra returned to the head of it, skin prickling, cheeks burning, tongue thick and dry. She tucked the letters into her belt, where they seared her skin until her watch was done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might go back and start filling in missing scenes when this first telling is done. I like a terse story, but I like an accurate and detailed one more.
> 
> Please do let me know what you think. I know we're still going in a few directions at once but I hope you'll like (or tolerate) them all.


	4. EPISTLES

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adora spends the night in Catra's new Mystacor quarters before she has to leave for the front.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: Just... all of the smut. All of it. Also, a little talk of bindings and their long-term use in ways that I think are realistic but please do give me a yell if I've got it wrong.

“Read one to me.”

Adora’s blush deepened. “...but... you said you read them already…”

“I did.” Catra placed her hands on Adora’s shoulders, pushed her slowly backward until her knee hit the edge of the huge purple bed and she made her buckle into sitting. “But I want to hear them in your voice.” She clambered onto the edge of the bed, knees either side of Adora’s thighs, gazing down at her with neck crooked. “I want to see what your face looks like, when you’re having these thoughts.” She craned down, placed her lips as gently as she knew Adora could feel just below her ear, rose a little, breathed: “And I want… inspiration, for my first reply.”

She felt eddies of hot air against her skin as Adora finally remembered to breathe, the hot breeze slow and shaking. “I was so sure… I was being too much.” she said, a frantic depth to her long vowels betraying a distortion in her throat, the one she got when she was close to tears.

“Oh?” Catra said, keeping herself at perfect whispering distance but tightening her embrace just enough for real reassurance. “If you really were being too much for me, would I be here, now, like this?” She shifted her hips a little for emphasis, and felt Adora fight the impulse to buck up into her. “Demanding even more of your attention?” She moved again. “Wanting to feel every damned ounce of it just once before you leave Mystacor?” And she sealed it with a slow grind on Adora’s thigh, a gentle moan in her ear.

And Adora’s confidence reasserted itself.

Catra let out half a yelp and half a laugh as Adora’s hands landed on her backside, and pulled her in hard as she stood, lifting her effortlessly. She tried not to think of how Adora’s forearms must look right now, holding all of Catra’s weight as she turned them both around, and fair near threw Catra back on the bed.

“Do you have a favourite?” Adora looked down at her, the smirk on her lips somewhere between the cockiness after a training scenario win - which made Catra want to wipe it off her face and replace it with blissed-out vacancy - and the goofiness of any one of their quieter, closer moments - which made her want to provoke her until the playful layers fell away and the war queen emerged.

Catra shivered, knew that her eyes and cheeks were betraying her with blowout and blush, fought to retain the question long enough to answer it.

“The one about the Plumerian girl,” she said, and watched Adora’s eyes turn pitch in real-time.

Adora nodded, licked her lips, picked up the stack of letters Catra had placed on the bedside table and leafed through them, swaying ever so slightly. Bright red splotched down her cheeks and neck, and Catra knew exactly how far down the blushing went, and relished the effect the little taunt had had on her tall, strong blonde. They had joked sometimes about perhaps propositioning a third, and it had given them some powerful fantasies - but neither had ever followed through, and Catra suspected neither would.

Adora found the letter, and started to read.

“ _ A Plumerian woman said that I should have a reward for saving her home and moons help me, when she turned to me and disrobed, I accepted.” _

Adora paused and looked up, and Catra beckoned her down. A little awkward clambering, and now Adora was above her, holding the letter in one hand and having to use that same elbow to keep her from falling, creating an exquisite double threat of her being just close enough that her breath washed over Catra as she read, and her stance being just awkward enough that she might land heavy on her at any moment.

_ ”I don’t know if it’s Her, or the Horde, or something that’s lived in me all along, but war rouses all my passions far past fever pitch. You know this, you’ve seen it,” _

Adora looked from the letter into her eyes, and Catra felt her breath hitch hard, heat churning through her.

_ ”you’ve fought me blow for blow when we were both that way. Our nights together after our days at brutal odds left me in smouldering sated ruin every time.” _

Adora punctuated the last few words with slow, plucking, open-mouthed kisses to her neck and Catra heard herself moan, low and desperate, and a bolt of something ripped through her as she realised that was fine, allowed, that even the unspoken agreement of ‘stay quiet and i won’t report you’ between cadets wasn’t needed here.

_ ”I tried the same with the Plumerian girl, but the process of mapping and conquering her was in no way enough - and in the end she left, unsettled, out of sorts.” _

Images of some faceless kind girl quailing in the face of Adora’s stalking, predatory need rushed through Catra’s mind, settled into her hindbrain, shorted themselves out in an utterly irresistible compulsion to sink her teeth into Adora’s neck. She basked in the sensation of Adora’s muscle under her teeth, in the immediacy of the groan that escaped Adora’s throat.

She could not resist smiling as Adora reined herself in and kept reading.

_ ”Plumeria is somewhat like the Horde was, when it comes to flesh, but perhaps it is Bright Moon I have spent too much time in - because I have a great and overwhelming need of you, and only you.” _

Adora met her eyes for those last few words, sending a depth charge of sheer warmth plunging into Catra’s gut. She maintained eye contact for the last paragraph, and Catra realised that meant it was committed to her memory, and that realisation set the charge to detonate.

_ ”I would not yet fight the queen in order to monopolise you, but the fuse is lit and all this war only hastens its burning, and at the end of it is something dark and possessive that bellows for you every moment, and someday I will lose the last of my resolve and release it, and I do not know when that day is. _ ”

Catra’s breath ran short and caught in her throat, and where she had hoped her next words would be deep they came out as a scattered rasp. “Today,” she said. “Now. Right now. Please.”

Something rough and dark escaped Adora’s throat that was most definitely a growl, and Catra felt something bone-deep change, something in her joints that loosened them even beyond the quietest, warmest relaxations they had ever managed to share after the fact, that canted her hips down as Adora crashed into her, that meant she would absolutely have to launder her clothes twice.

Adora sank her teeth into Catra’s neck, and the moan that escaped her was far too loud for the walls and the door of her quarters, and the images of Mystacor staff and subjects giving her that look as she walked its halls flickered through her head until her scalp tingled from anticipated pride and embarrassment alike.

And then Adora’s hand was on her stomach, fingertips tracing down fast - sending tension exploding back up her abdomen, driving the air out of her even as Adora ran that point of pressure down her unreasonably nice new Mystacor slacks to press firm and unyielding and perfect against her, the imprint of her fingertips blunted by the fabric of the slacks and then enhanced again by the fabric of her entirely ruined underwear pressing just the tiniest way into her.

Adora had talked about mapping and conquering the Plumerian girl - and it was this moment right now when Catra realised that Adora had long since mapped her, and that everything up til now had been her savouring it, and only now was she fully devoted to the conquest. Her back arched in some languageless need to press every inch of herself against Adora, and she savoured the contact, and with a burning rush of something beyond reckoning, she began her own offensive.

Catra brought her hand up to Adora’s head, slid her fingers into her hair beneath the tie holding her ponytail in place, pulled her into her neck even harder. Adora was dedicated to the conquest now? Well, she could be too. “You can mark me, you know. We’re not in the Fright Zone any more, and out here I don’t care who knows…”

Her war queen stilled, and two, three heartbeats passed. And then she kissed her way up Catra’s neck and just below the joint of her jaw she lapped once, and placed her lips, and sucked, hard. Catra didn’t stand a chance of suppressing the shudder that Adora’s claim sent wracking through her, or the way her purr shifted to gravel as she felt her skin bruising.

But this was how you ran the counteroffensive against an enemy as formidable as the War Queen. Guerilla tactics, distraction, overwhelm and misdirection. Catra waited for Adora’s lips to ease and then shifted out from her grasp, brought her hands down to her shoulders, forced her flat down onto the bed and straddled her hips.

“No,” she said as Adora reached up for her. “You stay there for now.” She gave her her best glare, the one with a hint of ownership she had used countless times to provoke her into post-combat rutting, and brought her hands up to her collar. Adora’s eyes narrowed and Catra found herself openly laughing at her because she knew  _ exactly _ what was running through Adora’s mind right now. “I know you love the waistcoat. You can fuck me in it in the morning, before you leave. Deal?”

Adora flushed, tucked her hands behind her head, and nodded. “Deal.”

Catra took the waistcoat off, flung it in the vague direction of her desk, then started working on her blouse. She counted each button undone against Adora’s tells. One, and she licked her lips. Two, and her eyes bored a hole into her now-revealed jugular notch. Three, and her lips parted. Four, and her right arm twitched. Catra gave her an amused smile for that one, it was certainly no coincidence that the button that revealed her lack of bra was the one that had Adora literally twitching to touch her. Five, and she licked her lips again. Catra hummed happily as she imagined and remembered Adora taking this same long, slow-revealed path with her tongue and lips. Six, and the shirt fell open, clearly not quite far enough for Adora - her eyes roved up and down Catra’s body, and her arms were a mess of tense muscle and tendon.

“Stay,” Catra reminded her as she stood from the straddle, savouring the sheer frustration on Adora’s face. She stood between Adora’s feet, hooked her thumbs into her waistline and wiggled out of the outrageously comfortable slacks before clambering back up. Adora’s response was worth every second of the wait. Of the twenty or more romance novels that Catra had read since leaving the Horde, three of them had this scenario; one character down to nothing but their blouse and underwear, and the other near mindless with desire. She was quite certain that the lace panels were helping - Adora’s chest moved with far deeper breaths than usual, her lip was curling in frustration, she was outright staring.

Catra couldn’t help but laugh at her. She knelt down over her, and leaned down to kiss her cheeks. “I won’t disappear if you blink,” she said. “But… you’re not to touch me.”

Adora  _ whined _ , and Catra thought that sound might get stuck playing back in her head until the end of time.

But this was war.

She brought her hands to Adora’s stomach, grasped her top, pulled it up to expose just a few inches of Adora’s formidable abdomen. She made eye contact again, watched as Adora  _ burned _ under her as she shifted forward and brought herself down, pressing herself onto her war queen’s hard and slightly trembling body, her ruined underwear undoubtedly making a slippery mess of Adora’s stomach.

She realised then that she was kneading Adora’s midriff, where she still held two bunched handfuls of her top. Apparently straddling Adora, feeling her heat and muscle pressed right up against her, was very nearly too much.

Her lover smirked up at her. “Comfortable, are we?”

“Idiot.” Catra breathed, completely incapable of keeping the tones of love and reverence out of her voice. She mustered, kept rucking Adora’s top up inch by inch, shifting forward to keep up every time, dragging herself… I mean, this was obscene, wasn’t it? None of the romances she’d read included this, this need to mark and grind and lose herself in the sensation of force against force.

She made a mental note to find something more brutish, more primal in the romance section of Mystacor’s library. And if she couldn’t find one, perhaps she would write it herself.

She reached Adora’s bindings. Her collected, tortuous slowness fell to mindless haste as she pulled Adora’s top up and off - Adora cooperated, but with half a smirk that told Catra that she knew exactly how close she was to letting the facade fall.

No. The temptation was there, but Catra knew here and now that this, tonight, was about conquering Adora right back.

She threw the rumpled white top, infrequent shards of Horde red, roughly after her waistcoat. She lowered her hands back down to Adora's bindings, plucked at the edges, and emphatically did not remove them.

"How many people now, have told you that it’s unhealthy to wear these so much?"

Adora looked aside.

"I know for certain that Sparkles did. And Ravia, and even the Queen."

"...yeah."

"So I'll cut a deal with you."

Adora finally looked back up at her, visibly a little confused and still flushed bright and dark-eyed.

"I'll ruin these bindings, right now, and I'll make it memorable. And tomorrow, you go to the quartermaster and get fitted for a sports bra. Or… whatever variant they use for close combat. Alright?"

Adora swallowed, her eyes darting between her own bindings and Catra's still very much soaked underwear and back up to Catra's face. "...Deal," she said, a softened dentive betraying the thickness of her tongue.

Catra smiled down at her and she knew that as much as she tried to make it possessive, her face gave off only warmth and love. Traitor.

She slid back a little way, and both of them shivered as she rode back onto Adora’s still slick but now cool abdominal muscles. Catra dropped forward and kissed her and oh, Adora was just so perfectly balanced, apprehension against abandon, calculation against instinct. Catra leaned into the kiss, licking out into Adora’s mouth, reminding her of the roughness of her tongue even as she brought a hand up to Adora’s left breast and stroked her nipple through binding fabric with the side of her thumb.

Adora keened into their seal-tight lips and Catra absolutely could not control the hard buck of her hips, or the moan that surged out of her throat and straight into Adora’s mouth. The very deliberate motion of Catra’s thumb bore fruit, parting two loops of Adora’s binding from each other, just enough to start exposing her nipple. Catra had done this before, of course, in quiet stolen moments between training sessions and once or twice in the riskier, more open places they’d carried out Project: Marking Our Territory. But never like this.

Catra used careful claws to part the bindings a little further, knelt back from the kiss, and slid forward again. She watched as Adora finally realised what was about to happen - or realised that it was about to transit from theory to reality - and took unreasonable delight in the way her jaw fell a little open, and her face and neck blotched deeper, brighter red.

And then she adjusted her knees, shifted herself sideways, canted her hips forward, and brought herself to grind gently down on Adora’s breast. Soft flesh through wet satin was absolutely divine but the complete certainty that it wasn’t enough, and the knowledge of exactly what to do to remedy that, bolted through Catra’s forearm and she hooked her fingers into the front panel of her underwear, pulled it aside, pressed down firm and precise.

And there was Adora’s pulse, pressed in a small hard point right up against her clit. Catra looked down at Adora and knew the look on her face was damn near the same as the look on her own, a combination of  _ what are we doing? _ and  _ why is this so fucking perfect? _ and  _ more _ . She focused, and just barely moved her hips, channeling every time she and Adora had ground each other to near-breathless, near-motionless orgasm back in Adora’s bunk over the years. That tiniest motion had both their mouths hanging open, breath rolling warm. Catra let herself fall forward, used one hand to hold herself over Adora and the other to start kneading and stroking at her other breast. And Adora  _ stared _ up at her as she moved, and Catra saw lines of tension, desperation, instinct crackle down shoulder, tricep, bicep, to the hands still tucked behind her head.

Her thumb finished stroking apart the bindings on Adora's other breast, and on something approaching autopilot, even as she ground down and made a spectacular soaked mess of Adora's bindings, even as she maintained that delicious and terrifying eye contact with her war queen, she took that nipple between thumb and forefinger and squeezed.

And Adora snapped. She surged up under Catra, shoving her all the way onto her back in one movement (as Catra hit the mattress she realised she finally understood why the phrase  _ one fell swoop _ was so popular in the books she read) and descended on her. And she was all weight and teeth and suction, crowding her down into the mattress, biting, kissing, sucking firm and possessive on all the right parts of her neck and throat.

" _ Mine _ ," Adora growled into her ear, supporting herself over Catra with one hand and sliding the other down her stomach, fast and irresistible just like last time, provoking a full-body shudder just like last time, but stopping for nothing. Her fingertips slid straight over Catra's underwear and down to try to push inside; on discovering that their jostling had let Catra's underwear slide back into place, Adora scowled, hooked her fingers underneath, yanked to the side - and tore one of the lace panels completely, leaving just a single loop of tattered fabric around Catra's thigh.

The tearing dragged another moan from Catra's throat, one that doubled in volume as she felt Adora push three fingers deep inside her.

"F...fuck, Adora!" She gasped at the ceiling, hips bucking hard.

"Mm-hm." Adora murmured into her ear, kissing just beneath it, her fingers moving slow, inexorable. Catra didn't even know what to make of what Adora was doing to her - her hips canted back and down of their own accord, her knees somehow came near enough to touch the bed under their own instruction, and the stretch was a little too much but nowhere near enough and Adora shifted, reached somehow just a little further inside her, and the back of Catra’s throat let out something deep and desperate and demanding, and her hips bucked hard into Adora’s wrist.

“Again,” Catra gasps out in between Adora’s deep, heavy, welcome intrusions, “Again. Need it. Need you. Fuck.”

And something more shifted in Adora’s motion and there it was again, that sensation of depth and fullness as Catra swore Adora’s fingertips found places inside her they had never found before.

“I love how open you are for me,” Adora murmured, still right into her ear with the faintest of breath. It was the most exquisite reward for her honesty that Catra could think of - and it combined with that evidence, Adora still having total control over her breath despite the sheer force she was exerting right now - to set a final incendiary charge deep inside her, and fire it.

Her whole damn body tensed, like it was structural cable holding back collapse. Her diaphragm didn’t even behave for the first few heartbeats as her abdomen went seismic, paralysing her with waves of pressure and shuddering, every single one white-hot and sizzling. She felt her claws come out and sink into the mattress, even as her back lifted away from it, even as she clenched hard around Adora.

And then breath returned. A long low groan of stale air escaped her in juddering disarray, and then she failed to fight the hyperventilation instinct, whines and moans of all kinds escaping her with every gasp.

Her tongue was tingling, she realised as she felt herself relax again. She looked up at Adora, breathing shallow now, fully aware that her jaw was hanging open.

“Fuck, Adora."

"Hmm." Adora smirked down at her. "If I've left you capable of fucking me - hell, if I've left you capable of  _ walking _ , I consider myself to have failed."

Catra felt herself pulse again, becoming very aware that Adora was still inside her. She looked down, and felt her tongue thicken and her mouth dry out at what she saw.

Adora's forearm, disappearing between her legs. Where the heel of her hand should have been, just her wrist and the slight tinted red and blue skin of her radial artery.

Catra licked her lips, looked back up at Adora. "So when you said you loved how open I was…"

"Mm-hm." Adora started pulling her hand out and she went slow and careful, and Catra was grateful as even that had her trembling and moaning in the back of her throat. "You just kept… opening up. So I just kept going." And with that Adora slid the last way out of her, leaving her empty and aching so well.

Catra tried to sit up, but found her stomach muscles wouldn’t cooperate. Exertion and depletion rang through them, the occasional shudder as she recovered from the sheer stretch of Adora’s whole damn hand.

She found her eyes half-lidded as she watched Adora licking the back of that hand clean. The action set something in her core to wanting more, but the signals just kept attenuating, trying to pass through exhausted nerves and muscles and fizzling out. “Want to take care of you,” Catra managed to get out.

Adora lay down next to her. “In the morning,” she said, with all that warmth that took Catra unawares sometimes. “You’re exhausted.”

“...I am,” Catra admitted, blinking slow.

Adora caught it, of course, and blinked slow right back, and Catra couldn’t keep the smile off her damned treacherous face.

“I realised something,” Adora said, looking right into her. “I  _ am _ too much. But maybe you are too, and maybe that works out perfectly for us.”

Catra managed to shuffle forward and kiss her slow. “Damn right,” she eked out.

She felt Adora shift even as her eyelids drifted shut, and next she knew they were nestled in next to each other under thick bedsheets, Adora’s bindings discarded and her sheer warmth ushering Catra back to sleep.

Not yet, she thought. Not quite yet.

“Will you read me another?” she murmured.

Adora hummed in assent. “Which one?”

“Oak and holly.” Catra cracked open an eyelid to look at Adora’s face. “Is that okay?”

She just nodded.

A rustling of papers, a slight clearing of the throat, and Adora’s voice came quiet and steady.

_ “We travelled the Whispering Woods on our way out to Thaymor. I saw a grove where oak and holly grew, and the sign of their buffeting over years by storm and rain and passing creature showed in their trunks and branches tangled, meshed and merged and matted such that to cut one would be to cut the other. And I was seized with the vision of my grave, a headstone thirty, fifty years hence sat small but proud beneath these trees, both thicker and taller and more wizened for their time alive, and both so much more entangled than before in ways seen and unseen. And forgive me my love for I imagined your grave there also, your name etched alongside mine some years later where space had been left on my passing, because everyone who knew us knew that that was how we would want to rest, in each other’s arms, beneath that quiet grove of oak and holly, for all the rest of time.” _


End file.
